Item 28 - Letter from Kenneth Sisam to R. B. McKerrow

Clarendon Press, Oxford.—Comments on the binding and the typeface.

—————

Transcript

The Clarendon Press, Oxford
26th September, 1927.

Dear Mr. McKerrow,

Many thanks for your letter of September 25th. I don’t think we shall alter the cloth, because it is the best wearing of our dark blues, and if you can pardon a certain amount of drabness, we certainly can.

There is one point very disappointing to me in the printing of the book—owing to the fault of the monotype makers, the f’s and f ligatures stand up rather boldly in this Caslon. It is an old fault, but I hoped it had been remedied.

I read with interest your remarks on some early types, but I have a liking for Fell against the others. In two sizes particularly—the small pica and the English—it makes most other types in use, to my eye, look rather commonplace or mannered, and I find it grows on one, as not all the new types do. The monotype Baskerville seems to me rather an unsatisfactory type in practical use—hard to read in the modern close setting, and not very attractive except in the small pica, which is very dainty.

Yours sincerely,
Kenneth Sisam

R. B. McKerrow Esq.,
Enderley,
Little Kingshill,
Great Missenden,
Bucks.

—————

Typed, except signature. At the head are the reference ‘3249/K.S.’ and, elsewhere, the letter ‘C.’